Generally, non-biodegradable implantable medical devices, such as, a metallic stent, remains in a patient's body throughout the life of the patient. Such medical devices being exogenous to the body may cause untoward reactions in the body. Such medical devices may also pose problem during interventional procedures. For example, a metallic stent implanted in the body of a patient may pose problems during coronary artery bypass surgery, diagnosis using magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography scan and the like. To overcome the problems associated with the non-biodegradable medical devices, biodegradable implantable medical devices are used.
The biodegradable implantable medical devices remain in the body of a patient for a particular time and then degrade eventually. Thus, after the particular time no biodegradable medical devices remain in the body of a patient. For example, biodegradable stent may degrade over a period between 3 months to 3 years and then there is no implant in the body.
However, rigidity and force offered by the biodegradable medical devices to a body organ may not sustain for a desired period because of continuous and uncontrolled degradation of the biodegradable medical devices. For example, degradation of a biodegradable stent may start from first day of implanting such stent thereby eventually resulting in reduction of radial force and rigidity offered by such stent to the vessels. Thus, continuous and uncontrolled degradation of such stent weakens the strength of stent to hold artery against arterial pressure.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for biodegradable medical devices exhibiting controlled degradation in-vivo and a method to control degradation of the biodegradable medical devices.